BOOK REVIEW: “Let’s Talk About Love” by Claire Kann

“Let’s Talk About Love”, a biromantic, asexual coming-of-age story for some of the underrepresented parts of the LGBTQ spectrum gets 4 out of 5 stars.

“Let’s Talk About Love” by Claire Kann tells a story of college-aged student Alice as she endeavors everything that life has to offer her. Throughout the novel, Alice struggles with friendships, romances, and even future career plans. “Let’s Talk About Love” is easily one of most realistic books I’ve ever read. The timeline and characters all flow nicely together. While reading, it felt like I was there with the characters, experiencing everything as they did. I would consider this book to be a nice escape from my own reality, not something intensely exciting or mind-blowing, but a nice distraction from real life.

Claire Kann does an excellent job of painting the character Alice as a real human being. Her feelings and thoughts were all easy to identify with. I was falling in love with Alice as I was reading; and the characters were my favorite part of the book. Each one is so independently developed that it is clear that Kann spent a lot of time crafting them.

I also can’t help but praise the book for including a biromantic, asexual character. The book I read previously, “Summer Bird Blue” by Akemi Dawn Bowman, included an asexual character, but didn’t delve too much into detail as to what that meant. While that was still an incredible book, I appreciated that Kann took the time to explore the different types of asexuality as well as what asexuality meant to Alice. Alice has a great appreciation for aesthetics and the “cuteness” of people. She’s even made a cutie code to classify how looking at someone makes her feel. It’s details like these that really enhanced the book for me.

Alice also regularly visits a therapist. This is the first book that I have ever read where I actually got to see a character talking to a therapist. I think this is something that is important for young people to see in books. I talk a lot about how normalizing LGBTQ characters is important (which it is), but these are also things that need to be normalized. Young adults will read this book and see that it’s okay to get help with these things. Alice also struggles with the uncertainty of not knowing who she is, a reason for the therapy visit, and I think these are all great topics to include in a book.

While I did love everything that this book stood for, talking about love and sexuality and gender equality, I felt as if it was made for people much younger than myself. I almost always enjoy young adult fiction, but Kann’s writing struck me as rather simple. It would be easier for a younger person to understand and even identify with, though it’s written about a girl in college. There are mature topics in here, but not many. I think the only thing some may deem as inappropriate is the conversation about arousal. Even then it’s spoken about only to figure out Alice’s feelings toward a person.

Also — and this might just be me — but I for one am thankful to see a bi (romantic in this case, but sexual in others) person end up with a male. Bisexuals get a lot of heat for their “bi status” and it’s awesome that Kann included a bi character whose romantic interest is a male. Often times bi stories are about girls realizing they’re bi by falling in love with a girl. I appreciate that Kann paired Alice up with a male, showing people that bi people can be with either sex.

Kann filled “Let’s Talk About Love” with important messages for the youth, and I think everyone could learn at least one new thing from reading this book. And even if nothing new is learned, at least the younger generations reading books like these will realize that therapy is okay, being uncertain is okay, and speaking your truth is okay.